Dismantling white supremacy in academia: Addressing postsecondary education's capacity for implementing anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies


Jennifer Ma, McMaster University; Maimuna Khan, McMaster University; Ameil Joseph, McMaster University; Chelsea Gabel, McMaster University

Both anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies involve deconstructing Eurocentric knowledge production and amplifying knowledge from the Global South, which have been largely excluded by modernity and coloniality. Generally, in post-secondary education there is growing discourse around decolonizing the academy and anti-racist movements with little tangible follow through. Existing research has demonstrated that educators express racist attitudes and beliefs and often uphold systemic racism in their work. Many anti-racist and decolonial actions within the academy have been reactionary (Gaudry and Lorenz, 2018) and tokenized (Moosavi, 2020). What remains unknown is the broader knowledge landscape regarding anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies, programs, and practices that educators engage with to contribute to efforts to dismantle white supremacy and to shift the dynamics of privilege and marginalization. A knowledge synthesis (KS) research project was conducted to bridge this knowledge gap. This KS seeks to respond to the contradictions within theory, pedagogy and practice that are complicit with and perpetuate systemically racist outcomes in the world. The scoping review utilized the framework by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines (Peters et al., 2020; Tricco et al., 2018). It is anticipated that the findings will guide and inform public and educational policy and practice, including promoting a true decolonial and anti-racist learning environment, which can extend beyond the classroom into communities and society at large while increasing the level of participation, representation, and knowledge sharing within the academy. The findings demonstrate that the main characteristics across the pedagogies include decentering dominant discourses, disrupting hierarchical power relations, relationality, reflexivity, intentionality, and creativity. The extant literature emphasized that anti-racist and decolonial work is for all administrators, educators, and learners. Furthermore, white supremacy, whiteness, settler colonialism, and racism must be named and discussed with the intent of dismantling systems of oppression. Universities need to shift from performative, surface level changes to structural and systemic change supporting implementation while participating in accountability processes. The workshop will focus on some of the high-level findings for context, but will primarily focus on some of the institutional, instructor and student barriers that prevent this work from prevailing. Participants will engage in critical discussions about experiences implementing anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies through participatory, experiential activities that can be used in the classroom and university. Folx will be invited to join an emailing list which will let people know when an open-access database is ready, which contains the bibliographical information for the articles included in the scoping review. It is hoped that this resourced will be continually updated and used as a method for researching anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies.

Non-presenting authors: Corrine Bent-Womack, University of Toronto; James Esemu-Ezewu, McMaster University; Hani Rukh E Qamar, McGill University; Xin Huang, McMaster University; Vanessa Maradiaga Rivas, McMaster University; Aasiya Satia, McMaster University; Ayat Salih, McMaster University

This paper will be presented at the following session: